Friendzoned
by Abicion
Summary: This is still a better Fatal Frame V ending than the Miku thing.
1. Chapter 1

_"Here's the truth: We're totally going to kill you now."_

 _-"No way!"_

 _"Yes way, Ted! We're fully programmed to do it."_

 _"Yeah! And we wanna do it, too."_

\- Evil Robot Bill and Evil Robot Ted to Bill and Ted, _Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey_

* * *

 _"Get out."_

\- T-1000, _Terminator 2: Judgment Day_

* * *

 _"Baby dan dan."_

\- Norio Sakai, _Lightning Superman Gridman_

* * *

Yuuri stood at the edge of the lake in the Unfathomable Forest. The night air was filled with sound of raindrops pelting down on wet leaves. Ripples broke on the surface of the lake, slightly distorting Yuuri's reflection in the water.

She and Fuyuhi had come to the forest looking for Haruka. Now Fuyuhi had gotten lost in the darkness and Yuuri had to find two missing persons.

 _Where could they be?  
_

An uneasy feeling crept up Yuuri's spine. She saw something white moving behind her reflection. The filament in the Camera Obscura began to resonate, and she cautiously pressed her thumb against the charger before she turned around.

It was Fuyuhi. Or rather, it was her ghastly specter, slowly lurching closer toward Yuuri on pale transparent feet with her mouth hanging agape. Colorless blood dyed the front of her blouse black. The illusory knife in her hands and the grotesque wound on her neck left no question toward the cause of her death. The knife had cut all the way to the bone, severing the muscles in her throat and leaving her head dangling sideways.

Yuuri hesitated, overwhelmed by a combination of fear and remorse. She regretfully started to raise the camera so she could at least put her friend to rest.

"Fuy-…"

Yuuri was cut off when Fuyuhi's arm lashed toward her in a quick jerking motion. The phantom knife flicked across the front of her throat, leaving a glowing white mark on her skin. Yuuri dropped the camera into the shallow riverbank and covered her throat with her hands. Her eyes grew wide with terror as Fuyuhi hovered a few inches closer.

The knife didn't slash into Yuuri's neck the way a real knife would. There was no physical wound, and Yuuri never lost a drop of blood. This knife had opened a rift in her neck, a spiritual portal into her body.

The delayed charge on the Camera Obscura suddenly went off at Yuuri's feet, sending a blinding flash of light straight up at her face. Yuuri winced and instinctively moved her hands from her neck to cover her eyes.

The ghost used this opportunity to touch the vulnerable mark on Yuuri's throat.

The dead envied the living, especially when it was the ghost of someone who had been forced into their demise before it was their time. Fuyuhi had been driven to commit suicide by slashing her own throat while one of crazed forest phantoms controlled her like a puppet. In her twisted ghostly form, she was jealous of Yuuri and would do anything to have her warm, living flesh.

Fuyuhi's fingers disappeared into the gap in Yuuri's neck. Then the rest of her hand was absorbed, followed by part of her forearm. Her entire ghostly visage dissolved into fog and was drawn into the vortex. Yuuri arched her back and gasped for breath as supernatural forces swirled around her and invaded her body.

The mark on Yuuri's neck disappeared, along with all trace of Fuyuhi's spirit. Yuuri crossed her arms and shivered as her entire body was overwhelmed by a sudden chill. Then Fuyuhi started to gain control.

Yuuri turned back toward the lake. She began wading deeper into the water, taking another reluctant footstep every few seconds. She whimpered at her approaching doom and frantically shook her head with each step, causing her damp, rain-soaked hair to cling to her face. Deeper and deeper she walked, until the calm and foreboding waters were a little past her ankles.

Yuuri stopped. Her hair completely covered her eyes as her head leaned forward. Her arms hung lifelessly at her sides. The only movements her body made were the gentle rising and falling of her chest and the small, steamy white clouds that left her lips as she breathed.

A sound like a soft howling wind began to move near the forest trees. But the trees weren't swaying, and the noise gradually became lower. The ripples in the water mysteriously reversed their flow and moved toward Yuuri, forming foamy rings around her legs.

The source of the noise steadily became clear. The lake itself was moaning in hundreds of tormented voices, and they were getting closer.

The first pair of ghostly arms shot up from the lake and tried to grab Yuuri by the backs of her knees. More of the horde reached the surface, swarming over Yuuri up her waist. Some of them continued clinging upward, revealing their gruesome faces as they rose out of the water. The apparitions of bloated temple servants and waterlogged shrine maidens surrounded Yuuri, pulling at her with their collective greed and malice.

Yuuri continued to stand in perfect eerie silence, seemingly oblivious to the spectral attack. Their incorporeal hands passed straight through her body without leaving a mark. They were grasping for something more valuable.

The ghosts soon won the struggle. Yuuri's body stumbled backward and nearly fell while her pale spirit was ripped forward. Her colorless spectral clothes looked like they had been torn to shreds, and her transparent white skin was covered with scratches. Yuuri's spirit reached up into the air and screamed for mercy as her ghostly captors dragged her into the lake, leaving her living body behind. The moaning gradually faded as the ghosts returned to the depths with their prize. Yuuri's pure soul needed to be washed in the mountain's vile, tainted waters in preparation for her wedding.

Now in complete control of her new body, Fuyuhi slowly walked out of the water and toward the forest path with sluggish footsteps. As she moved, her hair became covered in dark, slimy oil. Her pores exuded foulness and corruption in the form of greenish gray ectoplasm, staining her clothes and turning her skin a pale emerald color. She didn't know how long this body would be able to survive under her pestilent influence, but even a few days of dwindling life would be better than another second trapped as a wandering spirit. She was obsessed with resuming the life that had been cruelly taken away from her.

"Ha… ru… ka. Ha… ru… ka."

Fuyuhi mumbled in Yuuri's weak, raspy voice as she lurched into the woods, leaving the Camera Obscura abandoned in the shallows of the lake.


	2. Chapter 2

" _Just a fly in the ointment, Hans. The monkey in the wrench."_

\- Bruce Willis, _Die Hard_

" _Where we're going, we won't need eyes to see."_

\- Sam Neill, _Jurassic Park III_

* * *

Water sloshed around Miu's ankles as she walked through the flooded shrine. It had been so long since she found the Camera Obscura washed up on a lonely riverbank and started following the trail up Mount Hikami by herself. She had overcome every riddle and defeated every phantom that crossed her path. Now she was about to meet her ghostly equal.

Miu was almost past the gates of the Mikami Shrine when she heard a noise coming from behind her. It was like the sound of steam after dousing water over a roaring campfire. She looked over her shoulder and gasped.

There, standing in the shallows of the caldera lake, was the vengeful spirit of Kyozo Kururugi. He had a lantern in one hand, a rusty farmer's cleaver in the other, and his body was covered with hideous burns. He looked straight at Miu with his mouth locked in an angered sneer and his eyes fixed with a gaze of death.

The shrill laughter of an elderly woman echoed from the opposite direction.

" _Ah, I see you're already acquainted with the guard dog."_

Miu faced the shrine again and saw the old Matchmaker standing at the gate. She was caught between two of the most powerful and wicked ghosts on the mountain. Even with several dozen paces between them, Miu could feel her pulse rising by the second.

" _He always wasn't such a loyal pet,"_ the Matchmaker said. _"He spent a century repeating the sinful night where he slaughtered us all."_

The water behind Kururugi started to bubble.

" _But we found a way to soothe his torment and turn his anguish against those who deserve it."_

A single ominous black box bobbed through the surface of the lake. Kururugi waited with the same chilling look on his face. The Matchmaker snickered lightly. The lid opened to reveal…

A mint condition Yuuri, sitting quietly with the tainted water up to her shoulders. Her skin was icy blue and in place of her modern clothes, she was shrouded in dark hair-like web. As she slowly rose to her feet and levitated out of the casket, the damp fibers coiled and flowed until they took the shape of a long black bridal robe, covering her from her head to her bare transparent toes. The hood of her kimono kept most of her face covered. All Miu could see was the small bridge of her nose of her nose and her smiling purple lips.

" _This girl was a worthy sacrifice,"_ the Matchmaker said. _"After we snatched out her spirit and baptized her in the Abyss, it wasn't long before she took her place among us."_

Seeing the vile thing Yuuri had become, a chill crawled down Miu's back. This was never the reunion she had hoped for.

" _We feasted on her Mitori for a fortnight before we put her to use. I only pray the lost spirit who brought her to us found her flesh as delectable as we found her soul."_

The old crone cackled again.

" _She made for such a nice bride. Not as pure as Ouse, but still rather pretty in her own right. A shame about the poor thing's eyes, though."_

Yuuri raised her head slightly, revealing her milky white irises. The same flash from the Camera Obscura that had doomed her in life now left her eternally blind in spirit form.

" _Not that it troubles her greatly. We let her keep just enough of her Mitori so she can use her premonitions to see clearly."_

Yuuri floated over Kyozo's shoulders, wrapping him in the long black sleeves of her bridal gown and tucking her arms lovingly around his scarred neck. He seemed to grow calm for a brief moment, until Yuuri whispered something in his ear and turned her cruel milky eyes toward Miu. All of his rage returned in an instant.

But Kururugi wasn't the one Miu needed to be afraid of. The real threat was Yuuri, guiding and manipulating her undead husband as if she were pulling his spiritual energy with puppet strings. Miu had the Camera Obscura to fend for herself. Yuuri had a demon capable of wholesale slaughter under her finger.

Miu raised the camera to her eyes and focused the lens on Yuuri's hovering shade.

The Matchmaker's raspy laughter caused her to lose the shot.

" _Silly girl. That trinket won't do a thing to help you. Your friend thought the same thing, and look what became of her."_

The lake frothed again, this time in a spot close to the Matchmaker. A second black box rose out of the unspeakable depths. When the lid opened, it revealed only a vacant pool of black water.

" _Of course, there's always a place for you,_ _ **Miu**_ _,"_ the Matchmaker said with a knowing smirk.

Fatal Frame story route decision time:

1\. Boss battle: Yuuri and Kyozo

2\. Let the creepy lady make you dirty

3\. Watch the first season of Viper

4\. Genuflect


End file.
